fathom - 6:08 am on Jun 14, 2003 (gmt 0)

What seems to help > can also hurt too.

Hehehe, I'm one of those who has been on a mission to remove all email references from the sites that I manage. All Contact Us links lead to the contact form. We do include a line that reads; If you do not wish to fill out the form below, you can send an email to Company Name. The email address is hidden but viewable once you click on the link.

POR is this <a href="mailto:Rod Brown <rod.brown@domain.com>"> if so it doesn't help stop harvesters.

Just the same formmails e.g. web-based forms...

Reduces usability for visitor's though. Saving yourself from possible spam is obviously a good thing but at the expense of the visitor ability to:

1. referencing their sent archive, and in lieu of this the ability to cc: or bcc: themselves

2. no spell checking and other writing tools

3. no read receipts

4. no ability to add to addressbook

...to name a few.

Unicode [unicode.org] is often a better approach that allows people who send alot of emails, require an archive, like receipts or prefer wordprocessing tools to continue doing so without the harvester spam.

Latest version 4.0

&#2486;&#2458; &#2465;&#2478;&#2499;&#2489;&#2470; &#2499;&#2495;&#2495;&#2474;&#2465;&#2497;&#2497; &#2489;&#2497; &#2474;&#2455;&#2495;.&#2472;&#2474;&#2455;&#2479;&#2488;
&#2433;&#2495;&#2455;&#2478;&#2499;&#2489;&#2488;.&#2503;
&#2455;&#2478;

Translated: My email address is rod.brown@domain.com

...and visible as the written text to the browser agent but a harvester wouldn't get a sniff of "email".

Translator Avro Keyboard [omicronlab.com] (freeware) allows you to one touch click back and forth between ISO character sets and unicode.

I know of a least one SEO who hides their "trade secrets" e.g. all coding is unicode > a bit overboard since they really haven't cornered the market on SEO secrets > but just the same there are many different advantages/benefits (and a few disadvantages) of using unicode.

[edited by: Marcia at 6:30 am (utc) on June 14, 2003]
[edit reason] Side scrolling. [/edit]